Sunday, November 29, 2015

Blyth Valley Labour MP Ronnie Campbell is a cheer leader for Comrade Corbyn. He has spent all his years on the backbenches (he was elected in 1987). He has now waded into the row between Corbyn and a significant part of Labour's shadow cabinet over Syria. In our regional newspaper, The Journal, yesterday, he lets rip about those on the right of the party. "They make me sick," Comrade Campbell is reported as saying.

Clearly there are differing positions in the Labour party on Syria, as indeed there are in all the parties. Differences of opinion have to be respected but the spitting of venom by the increasingly fractious Labour party at themselves over Syria reminds me so much of the (for Labour) calamitous years of the 1980s when Labour members were more interested in beating each other up than trying to beat the Conservatives. What a sorry mess.

It was the Marley Hill Community Centre Christmas market today. I had a small involvement with organising it but most of the work was done by other members of the management committee. I did however have a stall selling the surplus preserves from my self-sufficient lifestyle.

Live music was provided.

There was a steady flow of people all day. No mad rush but everyone felt the market went well.

Saturday, November 28, 2015

An action day in Dunston, Gateshead, today was not our original plan. We were meant to be piling into another ward but a technical hitch at the printers meant that the Focus for that ward was not ready in time. However, we had 5000 Focuses for Dunston, Lobley Hill and Teams to deliver so suddenly, we had a Dunston action day instead.

The priority was to deliver Dunston Hill (which is part of a ward we are defending next year). I delivered 400 in the morning. Some patches in Dunston Hill were taken by others for delivery later in the week.

We then headed down to the Waggon Team for lunch, a rather slow affair as the meal took over 45 minutes to be served to us. At least we had time for sore feet to recover.

It was then time for a trip to the Dunston Staiths. Myself, Daniel Duggan (Chowdene) and Kevin McClurey (Dunston Hill and Whickham East) delivered the whole estate.

There are lots of flats at the Dunston Staiths - some of which are very easy to deliver!

Sadly, when I got home, I still had 50 Focuses to deliver in Sunniside. I did them between having a cup of tea and milking the goat. Who said life isn't varied?

My thanks to the person who I won't name for directing me today towards a Facebook site set up by Corbyn fan club Momentum. The first meeting of the Gateshead and Blaydon branch is being held on Monday and apparently the agenda is ruffling a few feathers in the ranks of the Labour party. You can visit the page on this link.

I draw your attention to item 3: "How we intervene in the LP/TU Movement."

"Intervene" is quite an interesting word to use. It is clearly a euphemism for taking control of the Labour party. But what should be even more worrying for the Labour party is the guest list for this meeting. Let me quote:

"Remember you don't have to be a supporter or member of the Labour party to come along." This appeared at the bottom of the agenda.

So what we have with Momentum is a Labour faction encouraging non-Labour members to take part in its attempts to take over the local Labour party, even though those people may not even be Labour supporters (ie they could be opponents of Labour).

In the Lib Dems we set the fashion for internal party democracy decades ago. It has since spilled over, in a limited way, into the other parties. Ours is a membership democracy - based on members who share a common set of beliefs. They have to be signed up and paying their subs to the party to take part in internal party democracy. Momentum, on the other hand, is inviting people who aren't Labour supporters to help them capture control of the Labour party.

The question has to be asked, why are Momentum inviting those who may oppose the Labour party to help them take over the Labour party? Surely Labour should consider that a reason for banning them.All this however does highlight the mess into which Labour has descended by electing Corbyn as leader. It also highlights the dangers we face in areas which Labour regard as their own fiefdoms, such as here in the North East. A Momentum clear out of the old guard could put the lunatic fringe in control of councils and institutions which play significant roles in the life and affairs of the North East. If the Momentum Tendency seizes control, those bodies will be politicised in a way that will completely undermine them, until such time as the Labour party in our area can be defeated at the ballot box. That's the goal my colleagues and I in the Lib Dems have to achieve.

I popped in to the citizenship ceremony taking place in Gateshead Civic Centre on Wednesday. One of my constituents was to be there, having his new British citizenship recognised. I think these are great ceremonies and would love to see them extended to all 16 year olds to mark their adulthood and their citizenship (though we also need to lower the voting age to 16). I was just getting out my camera to take some photos (my attending an event and not taking photos is unthinkable!) when an officer told me that photos were not allowed. This seems a bit odd for a ceremony that celebrates citizenship. Surely it should be something we should be promoting. Sadly, my camera had to be put away.

Friday, November 27, 2015

About 2 years ago, I persuaded the Sunniside History Society to consider setting up a project to look into the history of the Washingwell area of Gateshead, part of which is in my ward. The society has since then enthusiastically pursued funding for the project to draw out the history of the past 2000 years in the Washingwell area which contains the remains of a Roman fort and medieval manor house, a Tudor culvert, ancient waggonways, early railways, ancient quarries, old coalmines and a historic orchard.

A couple of months ago, the Heritage Lottery Fund announced the project is to receive £10,000 to draw out the history of the area from the medieval to the modern era. We hope to carry out 2 other phases of the project in the years to come: an exploration of the Roman fort (which has not yet been excavated) and renovation of the historic orchard.

Tonight we had the latest meeting of the group running the project. I am leading on the work looking at the changing landscape and the flora and fauna which has inhabited the area over the past 1000 years. I will also be helping to do some filming about the project and to produce a dvd.

The project should be completed by October next year.

In the meantime, check out the photos I took recently in the Washingwell area. Washingwell Woods contains a number of features which are man made. They will need a great deal of study to work out what their purpose was. This is going to be an interesting project.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Can Labour's stream of shoot-themselves-in-the-foot actions ever end? Apparently not, if today is anything to go by. The looks of horror on the faces of Labour MPs as John McDonnell whipped out his copy of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book had to be seen to be believed. And the look of absolute joy on the faces of Tory MPs said it all. Labour have already pressed the stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off button with their decision to rebel against reality by electing Corbyn to the leadership. Now they just want to make life easy for the Conservatives by self-destructing. This is like a political soap opera with a seriously bad and unbelievable script.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

For some years now, Gateshead Council has not been providing a Christmas tree for Whickham. Instead, a group of volunteers called Lighting Up Whickham, have raised the funds for the tree and have held a switching-on event. This year's tree was switched on today and I was there to do the photos. You can see them on the above link.

Marley Hill and Byermoor villages are in my council ward in Gateshead. They are both relatively small with 170 and 55 houses respectively. I wrote the focus for the 2 villages over the weekend. We had plenty of news and had to leave some stories out of this A3 edition. The main articles are about the sale of Marley Hill School for housing, an appeal for volunteers to help tidy up planters in the villages, damage to the embankment next to Marley Hill football pitch and Labour's decision to spend £45,000 on refurbishing the Leader and Cabinet offices at Gateshead Civic Centre.

I spent this morning delivering the two villages.

Meanwhile, as I write this, my colleague Cllr John McClurey should be finishing the printing of the Sunniside Focus. I'm expecting a large quantity to be deposited with me later today.

The dinosaur Labour establishment which believes the North East is a Labour one party state has just been given a bloody nose by the raving revolutionaries of the Momentum Corbyn fan club. Our local newspaper, The Journal, reported today on a meeting of the North West Durham constituency in which Momentum members turned up in large numbers and had the audacity not to vote back in the MP's husband as the long serving "campaign co-ordinator". Bob Glass was dumped in favour of Paul Simpson, a Corbyn devotee and left wing blogger.

Quite what on which Mr Glass has campaigned in recent years, other than his wife Pat's election as MP, is something I cannot answer. The Labour party generally in the North East is not renown as a campaigning organisation. The Labour establishment simply believes they have a natural right to rule. Why campaign when they have all the power?

Quite which new direction Mr Simpson will send his constituency in terms of campaigning is also something I cannot answer. The real interest however is in whether or not this is the first shot fired in a more brutal civil war in the Labour party. Will the momentum behind Momentum mean they start eyeing up Labour MPs and councillors who are not "socialist" enough (that does not narrow down the field very much)? Will the prospect of deselection stalk the Labour establishment? And what about Labour's choice of candidate for the North East elected mayor in May 2017? Will Momentum be pressing for a left winger or will the Labour establishment be able to impose one of their dinosaurs?

It's probably too early to say. If Corbyn's current poor performance continues, and he is given his marching orders, will Momentum sit idly buy and watch as the Beloved Leader is dumped?

Monday, November 23, 2015

In recent weeks in Gateshead we have held 4 action days to ensure a large team can deliver and canvass various wards. On Saturday however I headed out of Gateshead to neighbouring Sunderland where the local party was having an action day in Millfield ward. The team in Sunderland is small but made up of mainly new, young and enthusiastic members. It was an enthusiasm that was obvious from the moment I arrived.

They kindly gave me over 500 Focuses to deliver and one of the streets I had to do was called Ravensworth Street. As the Ravensworth country estate is partly in my ward (and was managed by my great grandfather Henry Wallace in the late Victorian period) I couldn't resist taking the above photo. The street is similar to most of the other streets I delivered - long terraces with no front gardens. This is delivery at its easiest! Later on I was sent into an estate that was so new that some of the houses were still being built and none of the streets was showing up on Google maps.

Niall Hodson is candidate for Millfield. If he and his campaign team continue along the course they have set themselves, there is a good chance he will be elected to Sunderland Council. We have no councillors in the city at the moment and we lost our last seat there in 2012, not that we had many in the first place. Re-establishing a foothold on the council will be a great boost for the Lib Dems.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

We have a modest number of new members in Dunston and Teams and Lobley Hill and Bensham wards so we decided to have a meeting with them on Thursday evening. Venue for the gathering was the Staiths Cafe, opposite the Dunston Staiths. We were up against the live (and loud) music but we huddled ourselves in a corner upstairs and talked about campaigning in the two wards. Alas, I was given the job of writing Focuses for the wards! They will be done after I've finished the two I'm currently writing for my own ward.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Labour councillors in Gateshead had been rather quiet on the issue of their new Leader. No outward expressions of joy at the onward march of the people's revolutionary collective, no socialist slurping of champagne at the arrival of Comrade Corbyn, no burblings from the brothers and sisters of socialism welcoming statements that everything they have fought for over the past 20 years was trash. Nothing. Just socialist silence. And then along came Cllr Catherine Donovan who decided to break Labour's holy vows of silence at the recent meeting of the Council's cabinet.

In appearance, Cllr Donovan is a socialist Margaret Thatcher with suits so severe and sharp you could slice bread with them! She zooms into the Civic Centre car park in her brand new Nissan Juke (or is that Joke?) and struts along the socialist catwalk as a rising star of Gateshead Labour party. My guess is that she has ambitions to rise further. Good luck to her.

Cllr Donovan was one of only a handful of Gateshead Labour councillors to come out in support of Corbyn during the leadership contest. So it was no surprise that she was the first Labour Councillor in Gateshead to welcome the Great Leader's election at a council meeting. The only surprise was how long it took any of them to make an announcement.

My views about living within your means are well known. It is a term I use regularly on this blog and in meetings. I aim to live my life within the means I have - I grow my own food, I reuse and recycle whatever I can, I've rejected the consumerist lifestyle, food waste is regarded as a hideous crime and I always aim to have a lower expenditure than income. At the last cabinet meeting, Cllr Donovan chose to look directly at me when she attacked the concept of living within your means. The words were said during the debate on the consultation on the council budget for next year. At last, she told us, with the election of Comrade Corbyn, she was in a party that now rejected austerity. There was no need for austerity as it is a "political choice" (presumably the flip side of her argument is that bankruptcy is the equal and opposite political choice). She ranted on about how the baby-eating evil forces of the Lib Dems and Conservatives had come together to destroy everything. Now, she was able to reject all of that in the Labour Party under the new Great Leader.

Given the views she had just presented, it is hard to square them with the previous lavish praise she had heaped on the Labour party over the past few years, at a time when they supported to varying degrees, some form of austerity. At no point however did Cllr Donovan say in the cabinet meeting how the money would be found for ending austerity. "Spend, spend, spend" may make Catherine feel good, but where does the money come from? Or do I heard the sound of printing presses cranking up?

Sunday, November 15, 2015

We held another action day in Gateshead today, this time in Ryton ward. There are 2 Labour and one Lib Dem councillors in the ward and Labour's weakest councillor is the one up for election next year. The aim of the day was to deliver 4500 leaflets and, apart from a few patches being taken by a couple of members for delivery later this week, we achieved full coverage across the ward. I was sent to deliver the largest patch in the ward (thanks colleagues!) which included Coronation Street. Not a cobble or recycled, rehashed storyline in sight!

Back at HQ, food was, as usual, provided for the masses.

A good time had by all though my shoes are now in a poor state and in need of replacement. It looks like a rare visit to a shop by me is required. Meanwhile, preparations are underway for our next action day in Low Fell and Chowdene.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

We have full council in Gateshead on Thursday so I thought I would look back at the last council meeting on 24th September and report on some of the issues debated.

There were 3 motions on the agenda,
one from us, on public health spending, and the other two from Labour, one on
the trade union reform bill, the other on Syrian refugees. Our motion
was about in year cuts to the public health budget, but it also raised concerns about the £1 million underspend by the council on public health
last year. After all, Labour had screamed dementedly at us when in government,
claiming we weren’t being given enough money for public health when Lib Dems in the Coalition negotiated the transfer of this function from the NHS to local government.

Labour of
course had to have an amendment, moved by the Rainbow Warrior of Gateshead
Council, Martin Gannon. Martin reminds me very much of one of those large, leather clad cushions that retains the shape of the last person to have sat on it. In the 1980s he was sat on by militant socialism, in the 90s and 00s he was sat on by the Blairites, after the 2010 general election he was sat on by Miliband, leaving him with no recognisable shape or form at all. We await news of Martin's latest shape in the Corbynesque, back-to-the-80s Labour party.

Labour's amendment removed
the words that welcomed the coalition’s decision to hand over control of public
health to local councils. I pointed out that this was one of our victories in
the coalition. “I won’t credit the Liberal Democrats with anything in
Government,” Martin replied. I accused him of wanting to airbrush away the Lib Dems
whilst praising the Conservatives, which was effectively what his amendment
did.

Then
came the debate on the TU bill. We oppose what the government is doing as it is
illiberal. As I pointed out, I am not a union member, have no interest in being
one and can find no benefit to myself being one. But in a democratic society,
people have a right of assembly to do and speak about things that others
oppose. The Labour motion was long winded and missed out some very key points
about what the government is doing and what the TUC want to be able to do (such
as strike ballots by phone/internet). I think the motion must have been written by Martin!
So we moved an amendment to include the bits they had missed and also remove
references to being free to go on general strikes. Amazingly, Labour accepted
our amendment. There’s hope for us all yet! However, the TU issue is of interest
only to a small minority of people. Labour’s enormous interest is an example of
their talking only to themselves.

Monday, November 09, 2015

My colleague Cllr Sonya Hawkins asked me to take the photos of the Swalwell Remembrance service on Sunday. So at 9.30am I was at the war memorial with camera. Photos can be seen on the album above.

The timing was perfect as it allowed me to get to the Whickham Remembrance Day parade which was meeting up next to Front Street School. I handed over the camera to David. He was to take the photos. I was in the parade.

You can see the photos in the above album. I warn you now. There are over 100. The Whickham parade is now the biggest in Gateshead. Over 40 wreaths were laid.

Wednesday, November 04, 2015

We held the AGM of Gateshead Lib Dems tonight. Good to see some of our new members there as well. We had a look back over the past year, both the good bits (local elections) and the bad bits (general election). We also reported back from the national and regional conferences. There seems to be quite a bit of interest in attending spring conference in York.

Some members stayed back for a group photo. I'm holding the Alisdair Wardlaw Trophy which was won by Gateshead at the recent regional conference for our local campaigning.

Despite
having to find £22 million of cuts to services this year, Labour in Gateshead
have poured £45,264.89 into a plush revamp of the offices for the Labour Leader of
the Council and the all-Labour Cabinet.

We spotted the work being carried out during the summer and discovered how much was spent by submitting a Freedom of
Information request.

At a time when priorities in spending are in sharp focus due to the cuts, this refurbishment can only be seen as a complete waste of money.

Labour
have clearly demonstrated where their priorities lie. Their own leadership now has
a comfortable office paid for by taxpayers from where they can decide how to
slash services to pay for their own plush comfort.

The same
Freedom of Information request also revealed that the Council plans to spend
nothing on the Opposition Office which has not been redecorated since 1986 when
the Civic Centre was built.

There are more important things on which to
spend than an office revamp. So I’m happy that the wallpaper and furniture
(other than one seat) in the Opposition Office hasn’t changed in 29 years!

Indeed, given the desire of the Labour party to go back to the 1980s, the opposition office decor would make them feel at home. And since I have every intention of rehousing them to the opposition office, I will be doing all I can to retain the office as it has been for the past 29 years.

Sunday, November 01, 2015

We held the latest of our Gateshead action days in Whickham North yesterday. A group of people descended on the home of Cllr Sonya Hawkins to help deliver 1000 leaflets, call at 300 doors and help run 3 street surgeries.

Providing lunch is always a requirement for wards hosting action days in Gateshead.